by kubasik
"By the right of his power!" I said, stepping toward the dragon, putting my back toward him, aligning myself with him. "He is not a name-giver in our meaning of the word, King Varulus. He is outside of our lives. He does not understand how we feel, what we live." I did not know exactly why I had taken this position, but it seemed vital that we end the puffed up displays if we were going to save Neden.
The dragon's head appeared beside mine, the long snout extending far past me. His massive eye, the left eye, turned toward me, pale and yellow, as large as my head. "You understand things most people do not."
"I know now that our lives are much smaller than the ideals we set for our ourselves. But within that delicate life, that small life, there is more than we usually notice.”
“Is that so?"
"I think so. I wanted to do enough deeds, even if terrible deeds, to make my life worthy of something to be remembered. But now I see that plan offered me nothing while living.
If I could live well my final years, that would be something. That would be miraculous."
"You will be the one."
"You act as if you had not chosen me already." I knew he had. If there was a pattern to be found in the swirling stars of human life, this was it. Death, the great dragons—the forces that thought in ways beyond our understanding—they offered us greatness when we least expected it. By surrendering our lives to the mundane, we would be open to their arrival.
They would pick us because we would be interesting.
"Yes. Exactly," said the dragon. "Interesting. You are a thief, a murderer, mutilator of children, rapist—" I glanced involuntarily at Kyrethe, my cheeks burning with shame.
She stiffened, but did not know the full implications of the dragon's words. The dragon paused, observing the reactions of all present. "There is something interesting about you being the one to try to save Neden. You have no ties to the boy, nothing political or familial that binds you to him."
"No," I said softly.
"Yet, if I told you that to save him you would risk your very soul. Not death, but the very life substance that would normally live beyond your death, you would agree to risk this."
"Yes."
"Exactly," the dragon said, as if he knew this moment had been coming all along.
"Exactly."
"I demand you let me be the one to do this," shouted Varulus. His warriors came to his side. I thought it certain Neden would die while we argued the matter endlessly, or used our weapons on each other.
"I don't think you could defeat me," said the dragon wearily. "But if you did, what would it gain you? Your son will be dead within the hour. I want to see how this thief does. My curiosity will be sated."
"Why are you doing this?” Varulus asked.
The dragon paused, turned his head slightly. "I don't really know. Not in a way that would satisfy you. But this thief is about to risk everything he is to save the life of a boy he does not really know. I need to know how it turns out. Don't you?"
Mountainshadow instructed me to stretch out on the ground beside him. Neden was carried to us, and set beside me. The dragon had me place my hand on Neden's head.
Then he placed one of his large, sharp foreclaws over my head. As the terror of the claws pressed around me, he said, "J'role, breathe lightly. For now you discover who you are."
"I don't think I want to find out."
The dragon laughed, good-natured, the sound low and echoing. "That is why you people are so strange. Are you ready?"
"What am I supposed to do?"
"I can only facilitate. The actions are yours."
Varulus stepped forward. "If my son dies ... !"
"But what am I ... ?"
The cavern vanished.
7
I stood on the deserted landscape from my youth. The ground was cracked and brown and endless. No trees. No birds. Nothing. A soulless wind touched my flesh for a moment.
Died. The sun bathed all I could see harsh and dry. As I turned, I strained to listen or hear Neden. Nothing. When I turned halfway around, I saw, The Breeton, half-buried in the cracked earth, tilted to port.
The ship still rested at the bottom of the Serpent River, ruined during the crew's mutiny so many years ago. But it also stood a quarter of a mile from me. Without thinking the matter over, I began walking toward it. , When I arrived, it towered above me. The wood was dry and rough. The paint pale. Splinters waited for the unwary. I called for Neden.
No response came back. I walked around the ship until I came to the cargo hold door.
The doors were unhinged, and I was able to crawl inside.
Shafts of sunlight cut through the splintered hull. In the harsh light, dust swirled slowly.
The stars, dancing. A dread pressed against met though I sensed no one nearby. It was the past, the threat of memories and old patterns haunting me, that caused the fear.
I moved on through the ship, through the lower holds. I expected Captain Patrochian to arrive even though she'd been dead these many years. But who knew?
Suddenly the ship tilted. Boards creaked. The rush of water down the corridor. I looked toward the sound. No water. Light. Thick and golden. A swarm of stars coming to drown me, bouncing off the walls, sweeping each other along in a furious rush. I turned to run up the sloped corridor.
I wanted to run but I couldn't move, a rope held me in place. I turned again. My father was drowning in the stars, the other end of the rope tied around him. He had not the strength to move on. His body weary, his spirit cracked in too many places. If he did not get help, he would die. But he was dragging me back toward him. He was so weak, weak, weak. Loathing clogged my mouth like rotted meat. He was everything I could not afford to be. I tried to drag him up, but in his panic he floundered in the water, dragging me back down.
There was only one way I could survive. I slid down the corridor toward him, arms extended. I grabbed him around the neck—
HE WAS SO WEAK!
And then a thought. If he was so much weaker than I, why could I not save him? Where was my strength?
I wanted to remove him from my life, deny him in any part of me. I could try again. Find all the strength that I'd wanted all my life. The impulse to destroy him was strong, but I hesitated.
Or try something different this time.
The stars swirled up around use bathing us in light, their motion a constant buzz in my eyes. My hands slipped from my father's neck and fell over his shoulders. I drew him close. He cried and I held him, giving him the comfort he had so badly needed before he could be strong again. The stars rose up around us.
Then he was gone. The stars gone too. A strange peace floated from within me.
Something finally put to rest. I touched my face. Felt my own flesh, but the old flesh of my father as well. Then I remembered Neden. I was closer now. Closer to him.
The ship was level. Bobbing in the water. I stood, rushed toward some stairs leading to the upper deck. The ship floated on a river of stars. To either side, solid night, without a moon or star to lend illumination. The ship's paddle wheel rolled forward, driving us toward a city that glowed so brightly that I could not stare at it. I traveled on for hours, a cool wind now blowing.
My mother rose from the river of stars. Hundreds of feet tall. I remembered her story in the realm of the dead. Her need to make everyone perfect. I felt myself a child again. She could control me. Destroy me. Panic clutched my chest. I did not have the strength to face her again. With desperate breaths I ran from her, running to the rear of the ship. If need be, I would leap off the stern when I got to it.
She stepped toward the vessel. The motion of her legs through the river of stars sent the ship rocking wildly. The stars rose up into the air, then rained down on the deck in great splashes. I clutched the rails, trying to keep my balance. I felt the fabric of the riverboat dissolving. The stars around me began to dim. I was leaving the place Mountainshadow had sent me.
Relief touched my cheeks. There were some thing
s I would not be able to face, even to rescue— Neden.
I could not leave him. The terror I felt at my mother’s, touch—what terrors was he living through now, victimized by Mordom's poison? I turned toward my mother. Her hand came for me. The ship's form became solid once more. The stars bright. She plucked me from the ship. Her face stern and unloving. She was a monster, not worthy of life. The things she had done to me ...
In her eyes, the faces of my boys, their faces cut and bleeding.
I had wanted to be a father who would not spoil his children. Who would not hold back pain. Who would make them know everything about the horrors of life. Who was I but my mother?
My mother began to shrink. Still holding me in one hand, she became smaller and smaller. Soon we were on the deck of the ship. She grew younger and younger. A baby.
In my arms. I cradled her. How had she been held? I rocked her and rocked her. As we sailed on she fell asleep. She grew smaller and smaller, until she finally disappeared within my own belly.
I felt her inside of me, this person. Living. Needing care. So much care.
Neden.
The citadel of stars loomed on a hill above. The ship's bow slid into a sandy beach and I disembarked. Trudged up the hill. There stood Parlainth. All of its walls and buildings alive with stars. So thick with brilliant light. Its magic and strength made me think nothing could get to it. It would be safe for all time. Then I remembered it was not safe. It had fallen.
I walked through the gates of the city. People filled the streets. No one saw me. More strangely, they barely noticed each other. They did not even seem to notice the beauty of their own city. Each walked with fear locking up their spines. They eyed the sky for threats of attack. They glanced suspiciously at their neighbors, searching for hidden clues of corruption. Their faces were the masks of the dead. Already buried. Ready to live out eternity writing the same story over and over again.
Ahead of me, floating from a courtyard, came screams of pain. The closer I got, the more huddled the people around me became, hunched over, gripping their arms around themselves. They seemed to think they could avoid hearing the screams by tightening themselves.
At the center of the courtyard Neden floated. Everyone kept a wide path from him, and I moved toward him without hindrance. As I got closer I saw that his body was stuffed with stars. They held him in place, in mid-air, like pins staking out a prize specimen in a butterfly collection. The stars made him glow from within and formed terrible black-edged holes on his flesh that healed and appeared again and again.
When he saw me he burst out crying, calling my name. "PLEASE! J'role, help me." I did not know where he found the strength even to speak, but his words echoed across the courtyard. The people around us paid no attention. The brilliantly white buildings made of stars sat mute, beautiful, but were no help for Neden's pain. When I reached him he lowered his voice, begging me, as if I might ignore him like the others. "Please. Please. It hurts so much. So much. Please." His face was torn and twisted with pain, the stars in his skull burned their way through his flesh over and over. Whatever wish I might have had to keep him safe from the terrible pain I had suffered as a child was useless now. He'd been through it all. Perhaps even more.
I didn't know what to do. I turned around, looking for help. A clue from one of the citizens, of the city. But they kept their eyes skyward, or stared at me with suspicion and ran on. "J'role, please. Get me off the stars."
Yes. The stars. They weren't in him so much as he was on them. They held him in place.
They would be the means of controlling him. I just had to pull him off the stars. I extended my hand toward his. As I got close to his skin, I felt the terrible heat. Not just heat. Pain. The pain radiated from the stars. The pain of the unexpected, of disappointment, betrayal. The pain of life. It burned so hot that even before I reached his hands I pulled away in fear. My father, my mother. I'd been able to embrace them. But pain itself? All my life I'd tried to hide myself away from that.
"J'role? Please, it hurts. So, so much."
The corrupted elves of Blood Wood had tried to protect themselves from the pain of the Horrors, and in doing so, had turned their own bodies against themselves. The citizens of Parlainth had hidden themselves as protection from the Horrors. Even though they had exiled themselves totally from the world, the Horrors had found them and slaughtered them. I had tried to teach my sons to be stronger than pain. They learned they could withstand terrible pain, but at what cost the lesson? I had hidden myself away all my life, trying to remain safe. But what had I saved?
I extended my hand. The pain of the stars burned through my flesh. No images now. Just the terror of life. The threat of things gone wrong. Of broken hearts. Stupid deaths.
Hateful words spoken and later regretted. Actions of impulse that led to tragedy. I did not want to touch his hand. The connection itself would imply tying myself to him. Getting into the habit of tying myself to people. That meant more complications, more pain. I wanted to be alone again. Safe.
I thought, as safe as the elves? The citizens of Parlainth? My mother? : I took his hand. The pain ripped through my palm, cut up through my chest. I began breathing rapidly Shaking. With out thinking I grabbed his other hand with my free hand.
I screamed in agony as the act of concern culminated. It seemed I would never free him.
Staggering, I backed ups pulled him from the stars.
He too, screamed, and the two of us filled the city with cries of agony. Then he fell from the stars, and I fell back and he landed on my chest. I held him close, my muscles tight, for I could not move at all.
Around me, the stars of the city's buildings began to dissolve. As the walls cracked when the Horrors attacked. No safety in stillness, shadows, loneliness. The pain comes for you wherever you are. The question is, will you count yourself among others in pain when it happens?
The city dissolved before my eyes. The stars, thousands upon thousand of them, swirled faster and faster, rushing up into the sky, scattering themselves where they belonged.
Fixed and distant, high above our mortal interactions. Their fixed paths and certainty were not mine to live by. I held Neden close. So, so close. He wrapped his arms around me. And we had done it. Shared ourselves against the pain of life, because that is what we do best.
When I looked up, we were in the cavern. Neden in my arms. Crying. His father standing before us. "Shhh. Shhh," I said. "There's someone here who wants to see you." I turned him around and when he saw Varulus, he called out, "Father!" and leaped into his father's arms. The old dwarf held his son tight. So loving.
Kyrethe knelt down beside me. "You were screaming. Are you all right?"
I felt very dizzy. Hungry. Ill at ease. Alive, with all the pangs that displeasure and misery can bring.
I said, "Yes. Oddly enough, I think I am."
8
When all the greetings had been taken care of, Neden explained to his father what had happened back at the, jungle, how I had tried to help, and how I did help. His father eyed me with suspicion, but finally decided to let me go. Varulus tried to chastise Mountainshadow for his actions in support of Mordom. The dragon listened politely.
Varulus offered to take us north in their airships, and we gladly accepted. While the dwarfs prepared to depart, Mountainshadow said to me, "Thank you."
"For what?" I said with a laugh. "It is I who should thank you. You gave me the chance to—complete things."
"But you risked yourself, and gave me knowledge." He seemed sad, and I could not help but think loneliness was a common trait among dragons.
"What did I risk? You said I would be—"
"You were in Neden's mind, though you carried your own images into it. You were sealed within it. If you had not freed him, you would have remained trapped within his thoughts. Your flesh would have remained in a coma, and your personality would have dissolved, over time, into the boy's. When he died, you would have been dragged to the realm of the dead with hi
m. Your identity depended on freeing the boy."
I sighed. A strange thought.
"J'role. As you were in Neden's mind, so I was in yours. I know of your life now. I would be curious— now that you have lived through the things you have lived through ... Have you any interest in contacting your family?" The dragon's tone was lighter than it had been earlier. It seemed more human.
"I hadn't thought about it really." As I did think about it, the prospect seemed daunting. "I really don't know what I would say. My boys ... They know nothing about me, really."
"Maybe you should tell them."
"I have faced many dangers, Mountainshadow. But approaching my family ..."
"Stories should he told. The truth helps."
"Sometimes."
"Oh, from what I've seen, it's not always pleasant. But it helps."
"I don't think I could do it."
"What if I helped?"
